There was a snake," he went on, lowering his voice, "last summer there was a snake that lived in a hole by the school-house, and he was a poison snake, an adder.

One day he crept out of his hole and came into the school-house, and scared them all 'most to death.

The teacher fainted away, and all the children got up into a corner on the table, and the snake had the whole floor to himself.

But it looked funny to see them all that way over a little beast that wasn't more than two foot long; so I thought about it, and then I went to the wood-box (we were burning brushwood then) and got a stick with a little fork at the end, and I came up quick behind the snake, and clapped that down over his neck, so he couldn't turn his head round, and then I took another stick and killed him.

That's only a little thing, but I wasn't afraid at all, and I thought perhaps it would show whether I would be good for anything when there were real things to be afraid of." The Skipper nodded in his pleasant, understanding way.